Facebook Privacy Settings you need to know

Privacy Settings for any online service is a very sensitive issue. Facebook is one of the social media service which is always in news. So I think its important for you to know about Facebook privacy settings in detail.

All these news make you think whether you should use these “Social Media Platforms” or you should quit. It’s easy to quit but thats not a good solution.

If you quit then how would you connect to your distant friends, family, and relatives? Who will update you about the happening in their life? How you will be updated about the news, jokes, memes, health tips and more?

In this post, I will try to answer almost all your questions about Privacy and Security Settings on Facebook. This will help you to protect your Facebook profile from breaches.

Why do you need to change your Facebook privacy settings?

First, let’s throw some light on the question “Why do you need to change your Facebook privacy settings?”

Whenever you log in for Facebook, sometimes you share your moments and sometimes you share what you are feeling? Now the question is how sure you are about your sharing to the friends whom you really want to share with? And what if Facebook “accidentally” resets your settings, like what happened in 2011.

To help you out, I am going to answer most important questions on Facebook Privacy and Security Settings.

[Tweet “Here is the answer to the most important questions on Facebook Privacy and Security Settings.”]

1. Concerns about Facebook Password?

Passwords are the most common way to prove your identity when using websites, apps, email services and other online services. Passwords ensure the security and confidentiality of data stored on various servers across the world.

[Tweet “It is your responsibility to make sure that your passwords are difficult to guess for a stranger or a hacker.”]

Why Do you need a strong password?

The use of strong passwords is necessary in order to protect your security and identity. Make sure you use a strong password and do not share your password to anyone else. When it comes to creating complex passwords people often feel the fear of forgetting them.

So, here is a way for you. For example, If your name contain the alphabet a use as “@“, for S use as “$”, number as “#” and add numeric of your birthday or memorable date in “password” that will be easy for you to memorise.

Another solution, you can use Password generator or Password Manager like Dashlane Password Manager, to safeguard your passwords.

2. Concerns about external apps using your Facebook data

You might be logged in to hundreds of apps with your Facebook account. According to Facebook, those apps can see your friends list, your profile picture, networks you belong to and any other public information on your profile.

How to find which apps have access to your data?

[Tweet “Here’s how to see a list of apps that have your data on Facebook”]

On the desktop or in the mobile app, tap menu on the top-right side of Facebook and select “Settings”.

Once you click on it you have three options with you “Active. Expired and Removed Apps lists”

On clicking a particular app, you will get to know about, what information is being shared with an app like “Friends list, Date of birth, Page likes and e-mail address, etc”.

Apps which have access to your Facebook data

How to deny access to your Facebook data to unwanted apps ?

Step 1: Determine the app which is using your data too much.

Step 2: Click on the name of the app, this will give you more details about what data is being shared with that app.

Step 3: You will see various switch buttons which determine what data is being shared. You can turn off the switch buttons to deny the sharing of that information.

Step 4: You can edit who can see the posts of this app. Options are Public, Friends, Me, Custom Lists.

Step 5: After you have made your changes, you can click on Save button to finalise the changes.

Info shared with individual app from your Facebook Account

How to disable Facebook Integration with apps permanently?

Step 1: Determine the apps which have your data using the above steps.

Step 2: Select the app (which you want to deny or remove) using checkbox.

Step 3: Click on Remove button on top right of the grid which displays the list of apps and websites.

Unfortunately, the data that you’ve previously shared will still be obtained by the app, but it won’t get updated with any new data.

3. How to run Facebook privacy checkup?

The Privacy Checkup helps you review who can see your posts and information (like your phone number and email address). To set with whom you want to share your information, you can review and adjust your privacy settings

Open Facebook Privacy Checkup

You’ll be guided through a set of Steps to review your current settings, you can change them and click next to save.

Facebook Privacy Checkup – Profile

Once you complete all the steps, you should be assure that most of your security settings are correct.

4. How to control who sees your Facebook Posts?

You can do this using audience selector(figure below) that you can find in most places where you share status updates, photos and other posts.

Audience Selector on Facebook Post

Click on it and you can choose from the options like Public, Friends, Friends Expect, Specific Friends or Only me. It automatically remembers the audience you shared with the last time unless you change it.

5. How to control who sees your app activity on Facebook?

App visibility setting controls who on Facebook can see lists of app you are using. To adjust visibility of your app activity, follow these steps:

11. How to permanently block someone on Facebook?

Search the person’s name by typing the name in search box provided and click Block.

Block Someone on Facebook from settings screen

From the same screen you can also block messages, app invites, event invites, pages or apps.

There is one more simple way of blocking someone on Facebook.

Go to the timeline of person who you want to block

Click on 3 dots (options) on the right side of Message button.

Select Block, new popup box will come up. You can give your confirmation and this person will be blocked.

Block from someone on Facebook from timeline

Now this person cannot search you, or contact you through Facebook.

12. How to limit old posts on Facebook?

This option is used to hide all your posts on Facebook in the pasts and turn them private. They will not be deleted but nobody can see them. Only you can see them. Here are the steps you need to follow.

Hide / Show Family and Relationships on your profile

The audience selector next to information will help you to set the audience. If you choose “Only Me”, nobody else can see this information. Check Image below.

Hide Family Member Facebook

Who can post on your timeline?

You and your friends can post content to your timeline. (if you allow them to) You can disable posts from particular friend in your timeline. Check Question no 21 on this post.

Who can see your posts?

You can control your post by choosing the audience. I have already explained about Audience Selector. You can go to “4. How to control who sees your Facebook Posts?” in this post to read again.

How can you turn on “Timeline Approval”? (so that nobody can see your tags before you approve)

You can approve or dismiss the tagged photos, posts, and app activities. This can be done by activating the “Timeline Approval”. This will allow you to approve any tagged photo / tagged post or tagged app activity, before it can be seen by anybody else on the Facebook. Here are the steps you need to follow:

Click on Edit button on the right side of setting called “Review posts you’re tagged in before the post appears on your timeline?” as shown in image below.

Enabled it from the dropdown provided. That’s it

Enable Timeline Review

Now whenever somebody tags you and you click on the notification. It will take you to “Timeline Approval” screen. Here you can approve or disapprove the tagged post.

18. How to stop strangers from messaging you on Facebook?

You can block messages from strangers by blocking them on messenger. Follow these steps to block someone from messaging you on Facebook.

In the chat window, click on the option icon

Select the option Block

A pop up will appear

Tap “Confirm” and you are done.

Block Messages on Facebook

19. How to deactivate my Facebook account?

Do you want to take a short break from Facebook? None of your friends will be able to see your posts. They will not be able to contact you through Facebook. It would be like your account never exist. You can re-activate your account normally later whenever you want to come back. Here are the steps you need to follow to de-activate your account:

But this technique will block everyone from posting on your timeline. Currently Facebook doesn’t allow you to block single person from posting on your timeline.

Alternatively, you can hide all your timeline posts from public, so that nobody else can see embarrassing post from one of your friends.

22. How to block App requests on Facebook?

There are times when you can get irritated by the notifications of App invites from your friends. The good news is that you can avoid this by blocking app invites from the settings by following the steps below.

Open settings from your app or open settings URL from the browser.

Choose Blocking in the left column

Scroll down to “Block app invites” section.

Type the name or email of the person you want to stop sending you app invites.

Block App Invites on Facebook

23. How To Block Event Invites On Facebook?

This is similar to above point. You just need to follow almost same steps. Here are the steps:

Open settings from your app or open settings URL from the browser.

Choose Blocking in the left column

In the “Block event invites” section.

type the name or email of the person you want to stop sending you app invites.

Block Event Invites on Facebook

24. How can I hide my friend list on Facebook?

You may not like someone to spy on you and your friends. For that it is necessary to hide your friend list on Facebook from public. Follow these steps:

From the dropdown menu select audience (ex: Friends, Public, Only me) with whom you want to share your friend list.

Hide Friendlist on Facebook

25. How to hide photos on Facebook from the public?

You can either hide a particular photo from the audience or you can also hide entire “Facebook Album” from the public. It is basically provided by Audience Selector for photo or entire album. Follow these steps to hide album on your Facebook profile.

Go to your profile.

Tap Photos, then tap Albums.

Select the album for which you want to change the privacy settings.

Tap Edit in the top right.

Click Audience Selector to bring up the drop-down which defines who can see this photo. See Image Below

Hide Facebook Album from Facebook

26. How to manage Facebook Ad Preferences & opt out of Ad Tracking?

Facebook serves ads, it has thousands of publishers who advertise their business. Facebook shows you ads based on your preferences. Here is how to edit those preferences.

You’ll also see “Advertisers and Businesses“, whose ads you have interacted with. You can also add/remove these.

There is another Tab called “Your Information“. Advertisers reach you in based on this information.

Also, there are categories into which you are automatically added. You can opt out of any of the category.

You can also choose to hide certain ad topics like Alcohol, Parenting, and Pet.

Facebook Ads Preferences

27. Protect your Facebook account from hackers

You can protect your Facebook account from hackers by following these guidelines.

Keep Strong password

As already discussed above in 1st point of this post, you need to have a strong password from security point of view, so that nobody can crack it easily. Steps to change the Facebook password are also mentioned in point 1.

Enable two-factor authentication

2 Factor authentication means, 2 step process to verify that you are the owner of the account which you are trying to access. Suppose somebody cracks your password because it was weak password. Still you can block access to your account by enabling two factor authentication.

In 2 factor authentication, Facebook sends a unique code to your registered mobile device. You need to enter that unique code (in addition to password), in order to access your account.

Tap “Edit” in the “Who can look you up using the email address you provided?” section.

In the dropdown, you will see options like Everyone, Friends of Friends, Friends, Only Me. Choose the appropriate option.

You can also opt out of search engines linking to your profile using last option in this section which is “Do you want search engines outside of Facebook to link to your profile?“. Tap edit and un-check the checkbox.

Opt out of Facebook Search and Other search engines like Google

30. How to disable contact sync on facebook messenger?

Facebook Messenger app on your phone, can sync your other phone contacts with Facebook. It will fetch contact info of your Facebook friends and add them as a contact in your phone and also vice-versa. ( Phone contacts will be added in your Facebook Messenger.)

If you are installing Messenger for the first time, it asks you to allow Contact Sync, you can disable it right from the first launch.

First Time Prompt for Contacts Sync on Facebook Messenger

But you may not want to do that due to certain reasons. Follow these steps to disable this sync.

Open your Profile in Messenger.

Select “People”.

Click on “Upload Contacts”. Click on Turn off.

A pop up will appear asking you to “Remove Contacts”. Tap on Remove and you are done.

People option inside Profile Page on Messenger

Upload Contacts Option Inside People Menu in Messenger

Turn off the Contacts Sync in Messenger

This is all for this article. I hope I have cleared a lot of your doubts by presenting most of the information related to Facebook Privacy settings at one place with visual cues.

I will be waiting for your feedback in comments section. Thanks for your time.